Assignment

How to spell assignment

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce assignment

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does assignment mean?

1. nounA task or piece of work allotted to someone, often as part of study or a job.
2. nounThe formal transfer of a right, property, or interest from one party to another.

Assignment in a sentence

• The history assignment is due at the end of the week.

• The lease included an assignment of the tenant's rights to a new occupier.

• Her manager handed her a difficult assignment on her first day.

• The contract forbids any assignment of the debt without written consent.

Where does assignment come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb assignare, formed from ad-, meaning 'to', and signare, meaning 'to mark out', which itself grew from signum, a 'mark' or 'sign'. In Roman use it meant to allot or mark something out for a particular person, especially land granted to soldiers. The verb passed into Old French as assigner and reached English in the 1300s, after which the noun assignment was built with the suffix -ment to name the act of assigning or the thing assigned. The hidden trap in the spelling is the silent g, inherited directly from signum; the same buried g explains why 'sign' and 'design' are spelled the way they are. Knowing that sign sits literally inside the middle of the word is the easiest way to lock down the letters.

How the word is built

• as- (from ad-, to)
• sign (from signum, a mark)
• -ment (noun-forming suffix)